﻿"Labor leaders dubbed it a slave labor bill and twenty-eight Democratic members of Congress declared it a new guarantee of industrial slavery" [History News Network].

Rights and Responsibilities

The Taft-Hartley Act was passed by both the House and the Senate before being vetoed by President Truman, as he argued this time that the "bill's provisions...were shocking--bad for labor, bad for management, bad for the country" [Dulles, 357]. However, this time, the bill's proponents succeeded in winning enough votes to override Truman's veto, and passed the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947.

FCEA Union President Michael Itkoff on the override of Truman's veto

How the Taft-Hartley Act affects labor workers

The measure's declared purpose was to restore the equality of bargaining power between the employers and the employees, which had supposedly been unbalanced with the passage of the Wagner Act. To do so, the act "guaranteed [employers] full freedom of expression in respect to union organizations...authorized to call for elections to determine appropriate bargaining units in wage negotiations" [Dulles, 357]. These were justified clauses that basically equalized power between the two sides, but the law also included several restrictions on union security itself, as it "banned the closed shop...unions were required to give 60-day notice for the termination of any agreement...were made suable in federal court...not allowed to contribute in political campaigns..." [Dulles, 358].

FCEA Union President Michael Itkoff on the purpose of the act

Most importantly however, the act created an entirely new method of dealing with strikes, by giving the President the power to file a 80-day injunction against any strike that "was found to be imperiling the national health or safety" [Dulles, 357]. The President then had the power to submit to Congress his own solution to strike, if the problem was not resolved within the 80-day period. Essentially, the Taft-Hartley Act enslaved the workers to the President, as it took away their most valuable form of power: the right to strike. It made the President mainly responsible for worker's rights--and it took this responsibility away from the unions.

American labor organizer William Z. Foster speaking about the Taft-Hartley Act